Living with fall out of disastrous life choices

[Treesinthewind]

I was listening to a podcast interview with Dr Katriona O'Sullivan who has written about growing up in poverty. She was talking about self-acceptance and therapy and how she realised all the bad decisions she'd blamed herself for were actually part of having grown up in poverty and with trauma.
But I'm from a middle-class background and have made lots of disastrous life choices and it's left me feeling like I really f**ked up the opportunity I had to have a comfortable life.

I can't regret the choices I made because they've led me to having my wonderful son, but basically I chose my late partner very badly because I wanted to "rescue" him from his own trauma and poor mental health, and ended up in an emotionally and financially abusive relationship that has destroyed my finances and my hopes of ever owning a home.

I managed to leave because he developed dangerous mental health issues which meant it wasn't safe to have our child around him, and he died a year later. He was from overseas so I don't have any support from his family and I wasn't entitled to any bereavement support benefits as we weren't married and weren't living together when he died.

My brother and sister have both married lovely spouses and bought houses with help from our parents. Meanwhile our parents had to remortgage to help me pay off the horrendous debt my ex got me into and I'm still paying it back.

I can only work part-time and well "below" my education and ability because I'm a 100% solo parent of a child with trauma/separation anxiety/possible neurodivergence and I've had to move back to the small town I grew up in to be close to family.
If we did yearbooks like they do in the States, I'd have been predicted "most likely to be Prime Minister or something. I was so high-achieving and I feel like I've wasted all that potential by making a bad decision when I was 25.
I used to be intelligent and driven and now my brain is totally addled by trauma, perimenopause and late-diagnosed ADHD and I can't see myself every being able to work in a high-paying profession. I also made the bad "choice" to work in the charity sector so I'm never going to make much!

Has anyone else been in a similar position? I just found out I can't even open a Lifetime ISA as I'm too old and it's hit me how financially screwed I am, and am going to be when I'm older. It feels like the only way people get out of this position is getting into another relationship and moving in together, which is not something I want to do (and absolutely definitely not while my son is still at home.)

Hi,
NC for this.
I can wholeheartedly relate.
It sucks.
I don't have the same challenges as you, but I also can't believe how my life has turned out because of essentially one choice in my 20s: marrying my STBexH and living in his country, where I am now stuck.
Financially it's not quite so bad, but it's very unlikely I'll be able to move home as my dc will choose to stay here, which is their home, and I can't bear the thought of being so far away from them, even though they are now adults.

So, not to minimize what you're going through, but maybe hang on to the positives? Your son will grow up surrounded by his extended family, you have their love and support, and that is priceless.
I don't have anyone left, and no one here.

It might not seem like it now, but you sound like you have the potential to rebuild a new life. When the dust settles.

I guessed from the headline that you have ADHD!

I'm also late-diagnosed ADHD, perimenopausal, and I made a lot of unwise decisions in my life, leading to decades of chaos and repeated episodes of burnout. I was a very clever child and primary school teachers said I would be Prime Minister.... I'm very far from that sort of job now! (Not that I would remotely want to be PM, anyway).

After getting diagnosed I started medication, and I got a specialist ND therapist to help me come to terms with the diagnosis. If you've not done this, please do it. I'd had therapy in the past but it never really worked for me. This time, in the context of ADHD (and trauma, of course), everything started to make sense. It took nine very painful months, and I am transformed. I achieved genuine self-acceptance, which is something I had never experienced before. The deep feeling of shame I had carried since I was a child is gone. I actually like myself, I feel gratitude for everything I have, and I feel nothing but compassion for the younger version of me who made all those awful decisions! She was trying her best but was just completely lost and didn't understand how to function like a "normal" person.

I know my life will never be completely "fixed", and I'll spend the rest of my life trying to sort stuff out. But, honestly I think we're all in the same boat. My NT friends who look like they've got their shit together certainly don't feel like they have. You don't have to stay in the charity sector if you don't want to. Think about retraining on a part-time basis. I thought I'd never study again because my brain went to shit around 40, but actually when my medication is working for a few hours each day I can read, think, and retain information.

Don't give up hope, and don't let yourself be a victim of your circumstances. The past is gone. Take accountability for your life and your situation, and focus your energy on creating the life you want. This is what I tell myself regularly, and it keeps me on track, so that I make decisions that will benefit Future Me, rather than just acting on impulse in the moment. Life is bloody hard with ADHD, but we are not victims; we are survivors.

Same
I just blew up another relationship 2 days before Xmas
I don't think it was entirely my fault but I ignored plenty of red flags
I also have a son with my alcoholic exh so I can't regret that
I think I have ADHD and or BPD and I really need to get some help

I'd definitely look into how ADHD presents in women, and especially the "emotional lability" bit of it. I'm disastrous in relationships so am staying away from them for now. In my experience, when I've "blown up" relationships and blamed myself for self-sabotaging, it's actually been that deep down I know it's not right for me, but I don't have the confidence to admit it to myself.
Listen to your instincts and protect yourself x

I can relate too. I had undiagnosed autism and inattentive adhd for 42 years. Bullied terribly at school, not abused exactly but emotionally neglected. My mother was a covert narcissist.

Some of my bad decisions haven't really been decisions at all. A lot of the time, Ive had two bad options and I've chosen the least bad option. I ended up in a long term relationship from the age of 18 because I needed looking after (in hindsight I think I had the emotional maturity of a 12 year old). Looking back I was very vulnerable and although my H was moderately narcissistic, he perhaps saved me from someone far worse. I feel it was my decision to leave and I took all the blame...I sabotaged the relationship because I wasn't emotionally mature enough to make the decision to leave in a sensible way.

Then there was a sort of snowball effect because once your life has been destabilised it feels like it's a constant battle to keep everything stable so that your children don't suffer. Then you end up burnt out and with physical and mental health problems. I did end up in a relationship with someone mentally unstable (who I wanted to rescue) but that led me to learning about abuse and narcissism so I'm not vulnerable anymore. I also learned a lot about my family of origin. Trouble is, I had an early menopause (probably from all the stress...there were loads of other issues with ND kids and exH being difficult) and now I've got no hormones, which makes a relationship virtually impossible. So it kind of feels like my life ended abruptly about five years ago. It was all a brilliant learning experience but I'm not sure what it was all for. My brain feels like it's been destroyed and almost feels physically painful. I'm on edge all the time because I expect there to be a disaster at any moment.

Anyway....I'm waffling...you can never really know whether a choice is good or bad and someone could have the 'perfect' life and lose it at any moment.

How old are you? You write as if you’re in your seventies with no likely chance of turning your life around, but even if DS is in his teens you can’t be older than early - mid forties. You’ve pretty much the same number of working years ahead of you as you have behind you, and every chance to build a career and decent financial platform for yourself - particularly since DS isn’t going to be reliant on you for much longer. Writing yourself off as incapable of doing that or seeing yourself as perpetually too unsuited to doing so is going to become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Your situation sounds exactly like the sort which would benefit from some coaching, to build self confidence and functional skills.

Not quite the same but I was brought up extremely religious and made life choices according to what the religion requires. Now in my 40s and thankfully left the religion but I am so sad about the career and financial decisions I made. It was considered sinful to want material wealth and nice things. I now live in a terrible area in a shitty house trying desperately to improve my situation. I resent my parents for bringing me up this way. It could be worse though. I try hard not to obsess how things could have been different if I had realised what pointless rubbish it all was sooner.

I think there are many of us @Treesinthewind

Im the same. No ND but childhood trauma and having learnt really crap ideas about relationships that took ages to unlearn.
Add health issues on the top and no I’m not where you’d expect me to be either :( :(

As PP I try to concentrate on what I do have and any small step, one at the time.
I look at what’s getting better, including how I’m managing things vs before.
My dcs (who are now nearly independent).
And I’m having regular sessions s with a counsellor. That’s non negociable for me,

Hi, I have also NC for this but I just felt like I had to contribute as I feel like this all the time and it's really hit a chord. My parents are lovely, exceptionally lovely people. My wider family is also lovely, close, protective and supportive of each other. The only thing I would say is that my parents are so happy together that they are a bit naive when it comes to relationships and never warned me that there are bad people out there...

I fell into such a bad relationship, even almost after a decade later I can't really talk about it.
My narc ex has made my life, and our kids' lives, and my parents' lives absolute hell since we split up.

I have no savings left.

I've had to use my parents' hard-earned savings to fight my ex in the family court. They have virtually no pension pot now because of him.

My mental health is shot to shit and I can't get a job in my chosen area of work aside from unqualified roles. At my age I would expect to be a manager by now but I find that with each passing year, management seem to get younger and younger! (I couldn't be a manager to anyone, can barely manage to get out of bed most mornings!)

I'm on a terrifyingly huge amount of medications which I need to keep me ticking over but they have made me hugely overweight, tired, sluggish, no libido etc. I just feel like a horrible sexless blob! In the long run, I don't know how they'll affect me. Whether they will shorten my life.

I have lost my home. I have no savings left.

My siblings and cousins are doing really well in their chosen professions and I am really noticing how much better-off than me they are. I am literally the poor relation because of him.

I'm the only single one in my family. I know my relatives pity me. My relatives who've got divorced have moved on and met lovely new partners, whereas I am scared of men and have no interest in dating because of my ex.

I think the worst thing of all is that my ex is happy to do this to the mother of his children. He's happy for his kids to be without a stable home, and for them to have second-hand everything because he wants to "win".

It depends what you think life is all about - what is it for?

If you think the purpose of life is to accumulate wealth, buy a house, and retire with a good pension, then yes, you have made poor choices.
But do you really believe this?

Don't compare yourself to other families - comparison is the thief of joy.
Besides, you never know what goes on behind closed doors.

If the purpose of life is to experience things and learn from them, then you have lived to the full.
And it is not over yet. Keep moving, keep experiencing, meeting people, trying things, going into new situations, learning about yourself.
Use your brain and education for something that you enjoy - it is not just about what job you can get. Read, study, do a few courses for fun. Keep learning about the world and yourself.
That is my idea of a life well lived.

I'm so sorry you've been through this and that your ex is still controlling you. I have far too many friends in the same position.
I feel really guilty about the impact of my relationship on my parents too. My mum was taken in by my ex as much as I was, and even though my dad never fully trusted him, he tried so hard to get him psychiatric help. My mum had to do a lot of supervising contact which was incredibly stressful for her too.

There's a kind of therapy you might find useful called Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) which could help you come to terms with where you are in life and find strategies to move forward.

Yes! I relate to so much of this. I was horribly bullied by my "friends" at high school and a lot of my early sexual experiences were abusive, which meant I found a lovely stable boyfriend at 17 and stayed with him far too long because I thought it would keep me safe. And then once I left that I went off the rails so was super vulnerable to my son's dad.
So yes, not so much one catastrophic decision as lots of little ones. I feel stupid for choosing to bring a child into that relationship but that also saved me. It's so hard to unravel isn't it, and maybe it isn't necessary. Maybe I'm just looking back and assessing the damage now I'm safe.

Hi, my parents targeted me for abuse. I’m not sure why, but it happens in families sometimes. They terrorized me and even after I moved out of the house they would go to my work and wait for me in the parking lot and things. My dad once walked into a store where I was working and told a manager I was suicidal, which I think changed the way they treated me and is part of why I wasn’t considered for promotions.

I was top of my class on a scholarship at a Catholic school. When I was working in retail people I went to school with wouldn’t say hi to me. When I was walking to work someone in a car was like yapping at me in French, then said ‘do you know what that means’ which must’ve been someone I knew in school who knew I was good at languages. A parent of a classmate saw me working in a store, smirked and said “huh you got left on the shelf!” People were really cruel.

People are shits, okay? I had a really bad start and “underachieved” on paper for the first like ten years post school. But all of my therapists said things like, “that’s wild that you went to university and got a job. People from families like yours are runaways, then they’re heroin prostitutes, then they’re dead. You have a JOB that’s HUGE!” I eventually became a cre broker, ran a division at a talent agency etc. And now I know who my actual friends are.

Youre going to be fine OP. You’re not on the same timeline as everyone else but you’re still fine. You are still working which is great because when your child’s older you won’t have a massive gap on your CV.

I also think you should consider blogging/doing a Substack because it’ll help you process everything even if you don’t make money from it. And you may make some money from it.

She was talking about self-acceptance and therapy and how she realised all the bad decisions she'd blamed herself for were actually part of having grown up in poverty and with trauma.

Well I guess that's convenient - not my fault, I was poor. I also grew up poor, but I made all my choices - good, bad or indifferent - because they were my choices. Nothing to do with growing up poor.

This reminds me of a book I read a couple of years ago, written by somebody who grew up a mile away from me, at around the same time. Went to the same school as me. It was full of self-indulgent whining about how he was so very poor (he went on school trips my parents couldn't afford!) and that poverty and the "awful school with its low expectations" were to blame for his poor life and feelings of inadequacy. That awful school got all three of us to university, successful careers etc etc. Not saying that we didn't make poor choices at times (did you meet my husband???) but there was only one thing to blame - the choices we made.

Accepting yourself is not about finding someone or something else to blame. You are the product of your circumstances and experiences, but you don't have to be the result of them. Confidence is owning your experiences and learning from them.

NC for this too. Just saying you're not alone. I was a high achiever in school and in my 20s but now basically unemployed and struggling to even get minimum-wage jobs due to being out of the workforce for so long. I care for my DS on my own, who probably has ADHD as well.

Two years ago I had a major mental breakdown and almost killed myself, triggered after my partner sexually assaulted me. He was one of many poor choices in partners who were emotionally and sexually abusive, regularly cheated on me, and/or had alcohol addictions. It wasn't until my latest round of therapy that I realised the extent of the abuse that I'd received. I grew up in a dysfunctional family with an abusive father so all the poor behaviour in my relationships just seemed normal to me. I have stayed with friends who were horrible to me, was extensively bullied at school and work, and during the Covid lockdown got into a relationship with a man who turned out to be an abusive narcissist.

I've recently been diagnosed with complex-PTSD and ADHD. Therapy has helped a lot but I did go through several therapists over the years to find a good one specialising in trauma. I spent a lot of time in sessions crying and raging over the wasted time. It's taken almost two years to come to terms with my past and only now starting to make small steps forward. I've learned to be kinder to myself and not blame myself for not being like other 'normal' people because it's not my fault that I just was never taught what normal boundaries looked like. Moving forward is bloody hard but I'm going on for the sake of being around for my DS.

Accepting yourself is not about finding someone or something else to blame. You are the product of your circumstances and experiences, but you don't have to be the result of them. Confidence is owning your experiences and learning from them.

I agree there.
But it’s also true you dint learn all of that within the next 2~3 years after becoming an adult.
It takes time, starting with realising that what you thought was normal wasn’t!
So yes you should learn from those experiences, take ownership. But you might STILL suffer from the consequences of those bad decisions (when you didn’t know better) later on in life.

eg when my dcs were little, I made some bad choices re parenting. I dint feel guilty about it because I know I always tried my best and changed the way I did things as soon as I realised I was handling things wrong. And I’ve repeated the process many times during their childhood.
I still know that some stuff were wrong and have impacted them negatively….
All of 3, taking responsibility, not feeling guilty and having fucked up can still be true at the same time.

I can relate to so much of this, and suspect I have ADHD. I think I was good at masking but perimenopause, a failing marriage, high needs teens and a stressful job laid it all bare.

Oh, and ditto to the childhood trauma, dysfunctional family, and basically not having a clue who I was, what is normal, how healthy relationships look, or how to function as an adult when I graduated.

Also ditto to the safe but ultimately wrong for me husband who probably was the best thing for the me I was back then. He never meant to hurt me. He was as mixed up as I was, still is, and came from a different but equally f-up family. Hurt people, hurt people and all that.

And also ditto to the crying with rage and the feeling of complete despair at all the wasted years.

Reading these replies has made me reflect. We made the choices we could at the time. We've healed and grown enough to know that they were not right for us now. Life idn't peachy but we're slowly rebuilding and getting stronger. We're on the right track.

This sounds really useful- I do love mumsnet!

Oh that sounds so tough. Yes, I feel very fortunate that I didn't move too far away from family so was able to come back home when everything imploded. I hope you're able to build a life for yourself there.

Thank you @Treesinthewind that means a lot xxx
My mum had her reservations at first but was eventually taken in by my ex. She sees the good in everyone and thought if he was making me happy, than he must be alright.

My dad was never a big fan however he'd never liked any of my partners so just thought he was being my dad.

Neither of my parents specifically warned me off him (not that it was their responsibility to, just observing).

It is literally unbelievable how many women are in this position 😪 just thinking about the cost alone for the impact it has on the NHS in anti-depressants; it must be astronomical.

I'm really sorry your mum found the contact supervision so stressful. Sending you a big hug x

I'm turning 41 this year
Not being able to imagine the future is something I've struggled with, and couldn't actually do until the last year or so. I was so completely trapped in my relationship and even when it ended I thought my life was going to be controlled by him forever. I guess as a survival strategy I had somewhat come to terms with that being my life and hadn't allowed myself to imagine anything more for myself. It's something I need to work on - coaching might be the way to do it. My self-confidence is utterly shot as I also went through a redundancy and being forced out of two jobs in the last four years!

Thank you so much for reminding me of this. One of the big reasons I split up with my high school boyfriend in my early 20s was that I thought there was more to life than settling down with him. I'm not sure I would ever be satisfied with what you describe but I guess it's hard to remember that when I see my siblings doing it and when this path I've chosen feels so hard. I also feel a lot of guilt for not being able to provide a stable home for my son.

We do the best we can based on our knowledge, experience and genetic make up.

No point in comparing or beating yourself up. You are good enough.

I'm so sorry you went through all of that. Being at home for Christmas as brought a lot of stuff up for me as I'm very much in the "scapegoat" role and it's hard not to feel really sad for little me.